Stone and Grace
by FloridaMagpie
Summary: I always felt there weren't enough M!Aeducan stories, nor enough M!Warden x Leliana stories, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. This is based on the hero of my first playthrough, and his relationship with everyone's favorite lay sister.
1. First Sight

Author's note: I expect to be updating this often - every day, if I can remember. I've got about 10,000 words already written on this story (and probably room for expansion in a few areas), but i want to try my hand at frequently updating a single story instead of jumping around all over the map with different one shots and half-written long stories. For those of you still waiting for the next chapter of "Armored," take heart. I'm plugging away at it in tandem with another fairly large project, and hope to have new reading material for you soon.

As for this story, I always felt there weren't enough M!Aeducan stories, nor enough M!Warden x Leliana stories, so I figured I'd try recounting the tale of the hero of my first playthrough of DA:O in short vignettes, focusing on his relationship with everyone's favorite lay sister. I rather doubt the rating will exceed T, but I guess we'll see. Happy reading!

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><p>Duran Aeducan knows he should be paying attention to the armed and armored men in front of him. The dwarf can feel Alistair's tension like a creaking slip fault at his back, but he can't pull his eyes from the willowy red-haired female human in front of him, and he doesn't know why. The sound of her voice makes him think of the stars he'd never seen before a week ago: beautiful, distant, and somehow as deeply alien as the rest of this strange, changeable place above the ground.<p>

He has just enough attention to spare to wonder why, of all the threats Loghain's man makes, the one against her is what makes the knuckles of his right hand tighten on the haft of his axe and his left creep up to the guige strap of his shield. Still, he says nothing. _Stone, what's wrong with me? _

Into the pause, Alistair pipes up, "What makes you think we're traitors?"

She's speaking again, but he isn't listening to the words, just the sound of her voice, ringing softly like silver bells one moment and sweet and slow as clotted cream the next. Her eyes are on him now, and his on hers, lost in their blue depths, and he feels rooted, frozen to the stone like a stalagmite until the growl of Loghain's man drowns hers out and his eyes snap back to the captain in time to hear:

"...kill the sister, and any..."

It's a sentence the human will never finish. The rising blade of the dwarf's axe shears off his right arm at the elbow on the forehand and carves a bloody gash through his neck on the backswing. The heavy round shield crunches forward, tossing the broken man backwards into the bar, streaming blood as he stamps forward, knocking the soldier to his right off his feet as he punches the steel weight of the axe-pommel into his jaw. He can hear bone crumble. He keeps his shield-arm head-high between him and the third man, his hands and body drilled to smooth, instinctive precision by the finest armsmasters in Orzammar. Pivoting easily on his left foot, he moves to engage the man closest to the strange human woman, axe rising to striking position...

...and pauses in surprise as he sees the human female gracefully pirouette into an overhand stab with a long-bladed dagger that slips between the man's collarbone and neck and drops him to the floor, stone dead. The pressure drop and the sound of shattering ice from behind him tells him that Morrigan has dealt with the last man, and poor Alistair is looking forlornly at the bodies, his blade still unmarked and wavering in his fist.

Duran shakes his head. He wanted to keep one alive to carry a message back to this fool of a human noble, but the man whose jaw he broke is the last one alive, and there's no way he's going to be repeating any kind of message to anyone. He lets the haft of the axe slide through his fingers as he chokes up on the blade for precision, and stoops by the semi-conscious soldier to end it. Strong, slender and unexpectedly callused fingers wrap around his wrist, and he pauses, held as much by surprise as the strength of the grip.

"Wait," she says. "He's learned his lesson." She looks up and around at the group. "We can all stop fighting now."

She's looking into his eyes from less than a foot away, and he feels himself frozen in place again. After a moment, he lowers his weapon and moves to straighten up. There's a blast of cold and his ears pop, and he whirls, bringing his shield up under his eyes into a defensive position and sees Morrigan shaking ice crystals off of her hand. A quick glance down tells him that the broken jawed soldier is snap-frozen to the floor and well beyond mercy now. The human behind him makes a frustrated sound through her teeth, for all the world like a disappointed dwarven matron. He almost smiles.

After a moment, she takes a deep breath, collects herself. "I'm Leliana," she says.

"Duran," he replies.


	2. Grace

His mistake is to glance back. He's worried about their positioning, worried that the clearing is too wide, that he and Alistair might not be able to attract the attention of all of the darkspawn swarming toward them from out of the treeline, that they'll be flanked. So he glances back to judge their positions, in doing so catches sight of her, focused on the enemy and unaware of his attention. She's just finished stringing her bow, and he can see the stave rising horizontally, her knuckles flat and pale and the delicate curve of her forearm rippling gently with unexpected muscle as she reaches over her shoulder with her right hand, fingers unerringly finding their way to the goosefeather fletching of an arrow.

Her head is down, chin pushed just slightly forward, strengthening the line of her jaw. Her eyes have a fixed, concentrated look about them, equal parts calm and savagery above the lithe, corded strength of her neck and shoulders. The burning sapphires of her eyes are fixed on something in the middle distance, and they never waver even as the arrow comes smoothly forward, gliding to a stop cradled between the first knuckle of her right hand and the wooden stave, her fingers smoothly curling in a graceful arc from the delicate precision of the nock to the dynamic strength of the archer's three-fingered draw. Her elbow rises up, up, and then back, the stave level now as she arches her spine and seems for one moment almost to lean impossibly _inside_ the growing curve of the bow as she draws it, driving the string and stave out away from her torso with a strong, sure stretching motion of both arms together and a ripple of the muscles in her back that he can see even beneath the chantry robes. She pauses, poised at the peak of her draw: arrow and string and bow and archer all balanced in perfect harmony, and then the arrow is in flight, and his eyes seem to spring back forward with it, as though he could follow its path, light and air bending around it as it ripples past him in a long smooth arc that he can _almost_ see and then it's buried to the fletchings in the chest of a hurlock who freezes for a moment, pinned to thin air in an contorted shape of shocked agony before he's run down and over and trampled by the press of darkspawn from behind him. And that, finally, is what breaks the spell and propels him forward, stumbling out of some exalted state of timeless wonder and into the mundane light of day as he lurches into movement, dragging the shield over his shoulder and the axe from his belt just in time to be enveloped in the mad press of grunting, shoving darkspawn. It takes him a few seconds to find his stride, and only blind luck keeps him on his feet long enough for his instincts and training to kick in as he sets about the grim work of close quarters battle. He knows he should regret the distraction that almost just cost him his life, but he can't.

_Beautiful, _he thinks.


	3. Sanity

Author's note: Double update today, just because the first one is a bit short.

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><p>"So," he begins. "This vision of yours..."<br>She sighs, looks at the ground. "I knew this would come up sooner or later. I don't know how to explain."

She tries anyway, and he listens to her jumbled descriptions of darkness and mountains and roses and he tries, earnestly, to understand what she's saying. In the end, he takes refuge in equivocating ignorance. "I'm a dwarf," he says. "We believe that we come from the stone, and one day return to it. We don't have any stories of this Maker, what he does or doesn't want. If you're sure you want to be here, then that's good enough for me."

_I'm glad you're here, _goes unsaid.

All the same, he knows from the whispers around the campsite that the others think she's crazy. He wonders whether he should be worried; realizes he doesn't care, and then thinks, a moment later, that that's probably a sign that perhaps it isn't *her* sanity he should be worried about. He shakes his head and goes back to wiping blood out of the points of his vambraces. At least that he can understand.


	4. Worried

The air leaves his lungs in a _whoosh_, and he crumples, gasping, the breath-stealing pain of cracked ribs rendering him temporarily incapacitated. The hurlock grunts a laugh, and raises the blackened and cracked head of the maul overhead to land the killing blow. _This is it, _he thinks, and then suddenly a feathered shaft sprouts in the center of the hurlock's chest, and another one lands a second and a half later and three inches higher, and then a third arrow _thocks_ home into the darkspawn's face, just under the right eye. The scabrous, decayed thing lurches, shudders, and then drops backwards out of sight, but right behind him are a pair of genlocks and another hurlock, an alpha by the armor, and it's got a battleaxe no less lethal than the maul that nearly stove in his head a minute ago. He can see a gleam in its eyes that says _Oh look, a dwarf! Yummy!_ And then a flashing blur of leather and steel passes above him; she's dropped the bow and there's a dagger in each fist as she dances around and under and _through _them, long lanky limbs everywhere at once as crimson flowers bloom on the chests and throats and faces of the bewildered darkspawn. He can barely take his eyes off of her, the lethal grace of her movements, her body perfectly poised at every moment, even the fierce light in her eyes as she sinks both blades together into the chest of another darkspawn, plants a foot on its chest, and heaves it away, limp and broken.

Then Alistair is there beside him, a strong grip on his elbow hoisting him to his feet in a blinding flash of pain, but almost instantly he feels the numbing tingle of healing magic at work, and as his vision clears, he sees Wynne, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, brow furrowed as golden light flows from her palms into his chest. There's a gristly triple pop as his ribs set themselves. It sounds like it should hurt, but it doesn't, and then suddenly, miraculously, he's whole, and breathing. He nods to the silver-haired mage, and she nods back, and then he turns to find _her_ inches from him, arms bloody to the elbows and a strange, anxious expression in her eyes. _Stone, is she afraid for him?_

"Are you alright?" she asks. "Maker, when I saw you go down..."  
>He nods, still short on breath and not sure he can trust his voice anyway. <em>It must be this place,<em> he thinks. _There's so much new and different here; I'm losing myself in all this strangeness. _

_Why do I care so much that she cares?_


	5. Contrast

He's watching her again, this time from across the campfire, sharing a flask of paragons-know-what with Oghren. Honestly, he's got no idea where the man keeps finding enough spirits to support his prodigious rate of consumption. He sniffs at his tankard, and catches a faint hint of armor polish. _Better not to ask,_he decides. Besides, he's got other things occupying his thoughts.

She's too tall. And there's no heft to her; she looks like a strong breeze would blow her away. Her delicate face and small, straight nose, and the whole stretched, spindly length of her draws his eyes like the flash of pyrite in quartz, and he keeps catching himself staring at her. He's got to get a hold of himself. Ancestors, she's not even the same _species_. Is there something wrong with him, he wonders? All his life he's admired the compact solidity and taciturn directness of a properly raised and turned-out dwarf maiden, and suddenly this talkative lanky creature is all he can think about. _This is a deep shaft_, he thinks. And he's still headed down.

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><p>Author's note: Since I can't send you a PM, I'd like to thank you for the reviews, Judy. And thanks, of course, to the surprising number of readers who enjoyed the story, reviews or not.<p> 


	6. Evasion

"So," he asks, "do all surfacer priests fight like you?"

She's good. He sees something flicker in her eyes but her face never changes. If he hadn't spent all of his life until a month ago in the snake pit that passes for the court of the king under the mountain, he'd have missed it.

"Priests?" She wears an expression of innocent puzzlement. "Oh! No, I did not take vows," she clarifies. "The chantry offers succor and safe harbor to all who seek it. I chose to stay, and become affirmed."

He didn't miss her evasion, or how she's taken the conversation in a different direction. Such verbal maneuvering is commonplace among the nobility of Orzammar, and he has a great deal of experience, if little enjoyment, in spotting such things. Best to follow this line of questioning and see if he can draw her out. He doesn't ask the obvious question - _why would a young woman like her need safe harbor?_

"What does "affirmed" mean?" he asks.

As she explains, he watches her face. Not a slip, not a false note. But there's something she's not telling him. Maybe from before the chantry? He probes, and sees the flicker again. So it's something about what she did before she entered this "cloister."

He asks.

"I was a travelling minstrel in Orlais," she tells him. "Tales and songs were my life. I performed, and they rewarded me with applause and coin. And my skill in battle? Well, you pick up different skills when you travel, yes?" A hesitation. "Yes, of course," she concludes, unconvincingly.

He lets it drop, but he knows he's going to have to try to take a clear-eyed look at her motivations and actions, especially if she continues to exert such an inexplicable influence over him. A child could have spotted the hitch in her explanation of her skills. Her behavior is... odd... to him; it's as though she's a practiced liar, but is reluctant to do so. In his experience, everyone lies, but good liars tend to lie consistently and constantly. In his judgment, she is a good liar. _So why the clumsy evasions?_

A healthy dose of doubt and paranoia are what keep dwarven nobles alive in the deadly politics of Orzammar. His instincts tell him that she's got something to hide. His observations tell him she's deadly with bow or dagger. Together those two facts make him nervous about her motives.

He's been lied to all his life by everyone he's ever known, everyone he's ever loved, and accepted it as the way of things. In the cutthroat politics of Orzammar, nobles swim in lies like pale cave fish in an underground lake. Betrayal is an impersonal thing, a part of the business of life.

_So why does it hurt when _she_ lies to him?_


	7. Wary

He watches her as she tells tales around the fire. The companions are riveted as she weaves intricate tales of darkspawn and witches, prophetesses and knights. He listens, but he watches, as well.

He's at war with himself. The instincts he's cultivated over a lifetime of surviving plots and betrayals tell him she's hiding something, and it's something important. _Don't trust her,_ they whisper.

And yet, like a moth to the flame, he's drawn to her anyway. He _wants_ to believe that whatever she's hiding is innocent, some youthful indiscretion or irrelevant piece of personal history.

But he doubts it. And so he watches, and listens, and tries to make up his mind. When they speak, he wears the mask he cultivated in his father's court.

Polite. Interested. _Wary._


	8. Confessions

In the end, she comes to him.

"You remember that I told you that I was a minstrel?"

He nods, mask firmly in place. "If you hadn't, all the songs and stories would have been a dead giveaway," he jokes.

She smiles, but it's a pale, thin thing. It's like she's not even trying to hide her unease.

"Not all minstrels are spies. Most are just singers and storytellers. But some of them are... what we call bards. Many use the two words 'minstrel' and 'bard' interchangably, but to do so in Orlais would cause misunderstanding. Bards are minstrels, and more. Spies, as you say. Some say that there is a bard order, but I do not think this is true. Many bards work alone, or in small groups, doing the bidding of a patron who pays for their services. If there is an organization behind it all, no one knows who they are."

They go on, question and answer, both dancing around the core issue. She tells him about the skills of bards, their specialties, the types of missions they take on, and the very nature of the "game" in Orlais.

It all sounds hauntingly familiar. It might be Orzammar, but for the lack of resources imposed by the constant pressure of the darkspawn. He begins to understand the forces that have shaped her, made her the contradictory combination of guile and forthrightness that's left him so confused. She's come right to the edge of a confession.

"You seem to know a quite a bit about these bards," he observes, mildly.

She sighs, and her eyes drop away from his. With a wry chuckle, she replies. "And I should, shouldn't I, after having spent most of my adult life as one." Her eyes come up to meet his, almost defiantly. "You've guessed as much, I'm sure," she challenges. After a moment, she looks away again. "But does it really matter what I was? What's past is past."

He nods. "So that's where you learned to fight like that," he says.

Her eyes are searching his face, looking for some sign of his response. Suddenly, her eyes widen. "You knew!" she cries.

He shakes his head. "Not the details," he says. "Dwarf, remember? Never heard of bards before today. But if you mean did I know there was something you weren't telling me? That I did."

"I don't... how did you..." she trails off.

He smiles, grimly. "Leliana, I'm not just a dwarven Grey Warden, I'm the second son of King Endrin of Orzammar."

Her eyes widen in shock. "You're a prince?" she asks, in a hushed voice.

"No," he says. "Not anymore. Now I'm just a Grey Warden." He smiles, grimly. "It sounds as though the nobility of Orzammar and Orlais have a lot in common. My younger brother made a play for the throne, and my older brother and I were in the way."

She puts a hand to her mouth. "Oh, how awful for you!" she exclaims, softly.

"Worse for my brother," he says flatly. "At least I'm still alive."

"But," she says, "your own brother! You must have been so... so hurt!"

He shrugs. "I'm sorry for my older brother. He wasn't always good to me, but he would have been a decent king. His name was Trian. Bhelan is my younger brother. _King_Bhelen by now, I suppose..." he trails off, looking thoughtful. "Don't forget, our standards are different from yours. In truth, my brother was probably right to do what he did. If Trian and I were so easily tricked, neither of us truly deserved the crown." He looks pensive for a moment. "At any rate," he says, "Thank you for being honest with me."

She smiles, wryly. "I waited long enough, I suppose. Anyway, thank you for returning the favor."

He barks a laugh, suddenly. "I'm going to be repeating that story to everyone else later. It's about to become quite relevant."

She looks puzzled. "And why is that?" she asks.

He stops laughing, his lip twisted in a bitter smile. "Because," he says, "One of parties to the treaties of aid we recovered in the wilds is the Dwarven King of Orzammar, so that's where we're headed next."


	9. Incredulous

"You want a _what_?" he asks.

"One of those subterranean bunny pigs," she repeats, then sighs at his blank stare. "But they must be hard to catch and... never mind me, I'm so silly. Forget about it."

She walks away, leaving a bewildered Duran in her wake.

_A nug? _ he thinks. _Why would she want a nug? Is she hungry? Stone, she doesn't want to... keep it, does she? For a pet? _He shivers in revulsion for a moment, staring off into space, then shakes his head slowly. _ Surfacers are so strange, _he thinks. He glances up after her as she settles down by the campfire again. The firelight flickers gently on the smooth planes of her face as she gazes into the flames.

_Still..._


	10. That which you already have

She's looking at him, hurt and confusion in her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me that you had a son?" she asks.

He grimaces, his eyes dark with pain and confusion. "I didn't _know_ until twenty minutes ago. Stone, I had no idea."

She's not done.

"And this _Mardy_, what is she to you?" He's at a loss for words. _Nothing,_ is what he wants to say, but the words won't come. Whatever he thinks of her, she's borne him a son. It would be dishonorable not to treat her with the appropriate regard.

She interprets his silence as evidence of the worst.

"Oh my... But... Why, I didn't... I mean..." She starts and stops, trails off, then suddenly rallies, eyes wide with hurt and shock. "Duran, are you _married?_" her voice cracks like broken bell on the last syllable. His head snaps up, eyes wide.

"Paragons, _no!_ I told you, she's a noble-hunter!" He's almost pleading. How can he make her understand the caste system, explain the complex intricacies of the working out of a thousand years of dwarven tradition and noble privilege in a few sentences?

"That doesn't help me to understand what that _means,_ Duran." Her deep blue eyes are narrowed slightly in frustration.

Oghren pipes up, unhelpfully.

"He means she's some low-caste bint with a taste for the good life who doesn't mind making her fortune on her back. Noble-hunters get themselves plowed by every aristocrat they can on the off chance that they can whelp him a son and spend the rest of their lives mooching off of his relatives. Nobles like it because it keeps them knee-deep in prime tail. Everyone else puts up with it because it's a stairway into the noble caste." He grunts. "Everybody wins! Mostly. Unless they have daughters. Then they're down the midden without a bucket."

Leliana recoils in shock, and Duran shoots a panicked, horrified glare at Oghren, having spent enough time among humans and their ideas about family and propriety to know that that was exactly the wrong way to put it. He's got to try to make her understand.

"It's not... it isn't like that..." he begins, weakly, but she's already walking away, restrained fury and disappointment evident in every line of her body.


	11. Slow Burn

**The Deep Roads, somewhere west of Orzammar**

They're rushing to keep up with her. She's carving a path through the darkspawn with sharp, angry, efficient movements, not even bothering with the bow. Everybody is avoiding looking at her directly, but even as they rest between fights they can feel the uncomfortable pressure of her smouldering anger. Even Sten seems mildly discomfited. Eventually of course, she makes a careless mistake, and Alistair catches an arrow in the shoulder covering her, and afterwards, Zevran grabs her by the elbow and marches her off down a recently-cleared side passage for a short, icy lecture while Morrigan and Wynne work to extract the arrow and heal the wound. They're back after a minute or two, Leliana's face a thunderous mix of banked anger and humiliation. She apologizes to Alistair, who shrugs it off, clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Duran never takes his eyes off of her.

She doesn't look at him once.


	12. Truce

**The Deep Roads, somewhere east of Orzammar**

They make camp for the night: bloody, exhausted, filthy and sore. Even without the simmering tension between the bard and the warden, the cold of the stone and the oppressive weight of rock over their heads makes relaxation difficult for the surfacers. They eat in silence, except for Oghren, who, very drunk, gets two-thirds of the way through a dirty joke about three maidens, a duster, and a bronto locked up all night in the shaperate before he forgets the punchline, wanders off, and eventually passes out on Shale's foot. The golem eyes him for a moment or two, then seems to decide against crushing him. For now, at any rate.

Finally, Sten has had enough, and says so, in a voice like rocks falling. Seizing each of them by an arm, he drags them off into an alcove.

"Resolve this," he orders, and stalks away.

Back at the fire, Zevran snorts and Wynne gently puts a hand over her mouth to hide a smile. He's left, swallowing and staring at her beautiful face so filled with anger and hurt and bewildered humiliation.

No one ever accused Duran of cowardice, and he sets out to explain with the hopeless determination of man feeling his way down a treacherous passage without a light. After a while, she's nodding, and finally after the third time he blindly apologizes, she smiles and puts a hand on his arm.

"That's enough," she says.

He stares for a moment, then lets out a sigh of relief as she turns away, following her with his eyes. He trails her back to the fire, two steps behind, almost dazed with weariness and confusion. Zevran rolls his eyes at Alistair as she curls up alone on her bedroll. Duran sinks down by the fire. After a minute, Wynne comes over and lays a companionable hand on his shoulder. Alistair gives him a sympathetic smile as he hands him a slice of dried meat. Morrigan just looks back and forth between the two of them, a speculative expression on her face.


	13. The inexplicable power of babies

_Sorry about the missed day yesterday – had a house full of relatives to feed and didn't get the chance to update the story. Two today to make up for it._

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><p>"Ohh, he's so <em>cute<em>!" she exclaims. "Just look at his little button nose!" She's holding his son, the one he's never seen before today, and she's smiling and rocking him like she's done it a thousand times. He's looking back and forth between her and Mardy, and he feels a nameless tug towards something he can't quite articulate.

Later, she and Mardy spend a few minutes in intense conversation over on the other side of the room, and on the way out she actually touches him on the shoulder, her earlier bitterness apparently forgotten for good. _Ancestors, but this woman is confusing_.

In the end, he decides that he's just happy that she's not angry anymore. At least his son is taken care of, now. One less thing to weigh on him. Time to head back up to the sun and the stars. He's going to miss the deep roads, and the reassuring weight of a mountain over his head.

_The duty that cannot be forsworn._ For the first time, he feels the weight of that oath, and wishes things were different, somehow.


	14. Relief

They emerge from the gates of Orzammar just as day is breaking. As she feels the first breath of wind on her face, he sees her close her eyes and smile. He watches the tension drain out of her back and shoulders for the first time since they passed under those gates two weeks ago. He feels sad for a moment, knowing that the place he feels most at home is so threatening and alien to her.

_On the other hand,_ he thinks, _it's not really my home anymore either_. For some unaccountable reason, there's something encouraging about the thought. He feels even better when she looks over and flashes him a wide smile just as the first golden sunbeams break over the hills in front of them. The glow turns her hair a molten red, and he feels something in his chest melt with it like gold in a crucible.


	15. Schmooples

In half a day the thing has gnawed through half of his trail rations and left a stinking puddle of _something _in his rucksack. That, more than anything else convinces him it's time to get rid of it. He carries it over to her, careful to keep his fingers clear of its mouth.

"Oooh, it's one of those subterranean bunny-pigs!" she cries. "Ooh, look at him. Come here, you." She drops to a knee and begins stroking the small hairless rodent from between its ears backwards to its small curled tail.

He catches sight of Oghren and Bodahn watching in astonishment.

"Careful," he grunts, "those things bite."

"Ohh, he's probably just hungry. Oooh, he's nuzzling me!" As the dwarf looks on in horror, she bends down still further, putting her head on a level with its small, beady eyes. "Snuffle snuffle!" she coos. And then she _giggles._

Behind her, he can see that the other two dwarves' faces have changed to matching expressions of disbelief. He manages to smooth his features into a neutral expression by the time she rises to her feet and makes eye contact with him again.

"Thank you so much," she says, matter-of-factly. "You've made my day."

Behind her, he can see Oghren rolling his eyes from his seat by the campfire, while Bodahn's shoulders shake with silent laughter. As the bard carries her new pet off into the night, cooing and making kissing noises, Duran watches her go. Oghren stumps up next to him, and stares after her as well.

"Surfacers are so sodding strange," he grunts after a moment, and knocks back the last of his ale. He turns and smirks at the exiled nobleman. "In case you're taking orders, brother, I want a pony." Chuckling to himself, he lays a stout slap onto Duran's shoulder and wanders unsteadily off towards his tent. Bodahn is nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, he's not looking up his recipe for nug pancakes.


	16. Stars

They've been taking their watches together for a week. The nights have been clear, the stars wheeling bright and cold overhead. She's been explaining the constellations to him. She points them out, tells him the stories of kings and heroes and enchanted animals that give them their names. He listens, silent, letting the burbling lilt of her voice wash over him, catching perhaps one word in three. Whenever she looks away to point out a star, he watches her face, intent on the planes of her cheekbones, her forehead, the sweep of her lashes, the distant light of the campfire flickering over her profile. When she mentions what a good listener he is, he almost laughs, but he manages to catch it in time. In Orzammar, a noble who can't control his expression is a noble courting death.

He's noticed recently that he misses the deep roads less, he no longer longs for the reassuring plane of stone whenever he looks up, no longer starts at the touch of the wind. He's changing; he's becoming a surfacer, of all things. That would bother him, he thinks, _should_ bother him, except that with every step he takes away from the dwarven prince he was he feels a step closer to her. He's without hope - there's no way a creature of air and light like her could love a plodding stolid child of the stone - but she tolerates his presence, and somehow the gnawing ache of that innocent condescension is preferable to a more rational distance in the face of his impossible attraction to her. She draws him, like a lodestone to a steel anvil. And like the anvil, she barely notices it.


	17. Turnabout

With Redcliffe at peace at last, and cleanup well underway, they finally have a little time to rest and regroup, which is why the first thing he notices as she comes up to him after dinner are her eyes. They're set, almost narrowed. They remind him of the way she looked at the darkspawn that first day he saw her draw her bow; focused, intent on her purpose. The sight makes him anxious. _Paragons, what now?_

It's not until she's three-quarters of the way through her stammering confession that he realizes what she's saying. Maybe his brother was right - he's too slow on the uptake to be king. His heart is thumping in his throat like a forge hammer and for maybe the first time in his life, the composure drilled into him by twenty years of training and tutoring in war and politics completely deserts him. He literally cannot speak, cannot do more than breathe, every grain and sliver of his being focused on her, on her words as they drop hesitantly from her lips like precious stones. For a moment, he wonders: if he were to look down, would he see them piled on the ground in a shining pile of diamonds and rubies and emeralds? It doesn't matter, he can't look away from the cerulean blue of her eyes as she trails off, flustered and embarrassed by his apparent lack of reaction.

He starts, stops; he swallows hard and tries again.

"Well, I'm glad it's not just me," he says. She takes a moment to get it, an expression of anxious embarrassment and incipient shame yielding suddenly to wide-eyed dawning hope.

"Really?" Her voice rises in happy disbelief. "No one told me." Sudden pique colors her voice. "You mean... you felt the same way and didn't do me the courtesy of informing me?"

He can see the flush rising in her face. He's not sure if it's happiness or anger, but he speaks quickly into the pause. "I didn't know you felt... this way. I didn't even know if it was possible." He takes a deep breath. "Stone, we're not exactly alike, you and I. I know my kind aren't... attractive, by your standards."

She seems bewildered. "Not attractive? You...?" She takes a breath, seems to regain her composure. "Oh, I don't know. You dwarves have a certain... rugged... quality to you. I like that." She pauses, grins impishly, "Well, I like _you_, anyway. Now Oghren, on the other hand..."

They both chuckle. Now that what she's said has started to sink in, he feels almost giddy, a buoyant pressure under his throat like his heart is too big for his chest. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you - I was..." he thinks, for a moment. "Afraid, I suppose."

Her eyes widen, in mock offense. "Afraid? Are you saying I'm frightening? And after you were so rude by making me spill my guts like that a minute ago?"

"Stone, yes," he says with asperity. "I suppose I should be sorry, but I just didn't imagine you could ever think of me that way. All this time I thought I had no hope, and you've just been waiting for me to say something?"

"You _suppose_ you should be sorry? You certainly should! How very ungentlemanly, making me wait all that time and then making me be the one to confess, stumbling over my words like some ill-educated peasant girl! Some prince _you _are." She's pretending to be angry, but her eyes are bright and sparkling.

"Alright," he agrees. "I apologize for making you... what was it you said? 'Spill your guts?' But Stone, you can be a bit intimidating, what with the singing, and the stories, and all that refinement and bardic charm." He looks at her, hopefully. "Maybe we can we call it even?"

She appears to think it over for a moment, then makes a noncommittal noise. "Well, maybe," she says. "But I _certainly _think it's only fair to expect _you _to take the next step."

She waits, an expectant look on her face.

_Paragons, what is he supposed to do next? Do surfacers show affection the same way as dwarves? Should he kiss her?_ A sudden, anxious thought. Can_ he even kiss her? Her mouth is a long way up."_

He's more nervous now than he's ever been facing darkspawn: his chest feels so tight that he can barely breathe, and his thoughts feel high up and far away, but takes a deep breath for courage, steps in, and reaches up for her face. There's a panicked moment as he realizes he really isn't tall enough.

_To the trenches with it,_ he thinks. _I'm committed now. _Changing the direction of his reach, he grabs the high collar of her leather armor and pulls firmly forward and down.

With a yelp, she stumbles forward, off balance, and he catches her up in his arms, left forearm under her head, right hand wrapped around her waist, fingers sinking into the warm, taut muscle at the small of her back. The shock is still in her eyes as he leans in to captures her eyes with his and moves in to brush her lips with his. For a moment, she's stiff in his arms, and then she melts, lips moving against his, eyes closing. He can feel her hands slip up the sides of his neck and brush past his ears, fingers exploring his face and twining into his hair. For a few moments, there's only the warmth of her mouth as it opens to him, and the intoxicating scent of her, close up: Andraste's Grace over the ubiquitous smells of leather and sweat. Then, suddenly, her eyes pop open inches from his, alight with mischief, and she grips his braid with one hand and his collar with the other and pulls explosively, back arching as she heaves him over and down onto the ground on his back and rolls lithely into a straddled position over his hips, nearly knocking the breath out of him in the process. For a moment he's too shocked to speak and, seeing his face, she sits up and laughs out loud like the chiming of bronze bells. Then she smiles, a cockeyed, sultry grin he's never seen on her before, and leans gracefully in to resume the kiss. After a moment, she pauses, smiling down, her eyes glowing in the last fading light of approaching evening.

"Now, we're even," she whispers, and closes her eyes.


	18. Dizzy

He can't escape the feeling that the whole camp is laughing at them. It's obvious, he knows. They've barely been able to tear themselves far enough apart to pack up the tents and eat breakfast. Alistair is making faces, Wynne keeps smiling at them, Zevran snorts every time he sees them staring at each other, and only Oghren appears oblivious, stumbling around camp, eyes slitted nearly closed against a particularly epic hangover.

He catches her looking again, and returns her gaze steadily, his normally stoic countenance splitting open in an uncontrollable grin that she echoes. The world is bright, and new, and shining, and it's hard to believe that there's any such thing as a blight, or darkspawn, or civil war.


	19. Andraste?

The full-grown high dragon (or Andraste, if the cultists are to be believed) hits the ground in a spray of snow, her roar shattering the frosty air as she stalks towards them, red-gold wings half outstretched and beating, little whirls of snow tossed about in the turbulence of their passing. Her huge, clawed feet are carefully placed with each step, making surprisingly little noise as she stalks toward them, catlike, huge horned head held low and mouth half open to reveal licks of flame flickering in the depths of her throat. The morning sunlight shimmers off her scales, almost blinding, and the overall effect is so magnificent that it almost comes as a surprise when she leaps, raising a huge puff of snow as she snaps viciously at the place he was standing a moment before. Rolling back to his feet, he sidesteps rapidly to his right, drawing her out so Alistair, Sven, and Oghren can flank her. Out of the corner of his eye he notices with relief that Leliana and the mages have climbed back up the slope to higher ground, where they can support from a distance without risking injury at the teeth and claws and fire of the dragon.

The battle is hard fought, but in the end it's Leliana who lands the critical blow, an arrow that passes between the dragon's teeth and punches up into the hard palate on the roof of her mouth. That seems to knock her back on her haunches, and Sten and Oghren take advantage of the opportunity to flank her and strike hard, greatsword and axe carving into her wings and hide. As she rears back, staggered and in pain, he sees his chance and leaps onto her back, scrambling up the wide plates and sharp spines until he reaches the base of her throat. She cranes her neck desperately, trying to come to grips with the small creature that's gotten inside of her guard. He seizes one of the horns on the top of her head, grips another with his legs, and hews away at each of her eyes in turn, gashing open first one, then the other. Reeling from the shock of her sudden blinding, she slips and falls, Duran rolling free and ending up in an undignified sprawl with the wind knocked out of him, and so finally it's Alistair who leaps into the breach to drive his sword home through the top of her skull and into her brain with one mighty blow.

Afterwards, as Zevran and Alistair hack souvenirs from the fallen behemoth, Leliana looks pensive.

"You don't think that there's any chance that..." she trails off, apprehensively.

He eyes her for a moment. "That she was actually Andraste returned?"

Leliana nods wordlessly.

He shrugs. "No way to know, I suppose. Although from what I hear this girl of yours was supposed to be kind and merciful, and I didn't see much evidence of that today.

She nods, looking relieved.

A sudden thought occurs to him, and he smiles, wickedly. "Besides," he points out, "wouldn't the Maker give his bride her choice of forms in which to be reincarnated?"

She looks at him, oddly. "I suppose. Why?"

"Well, if you'd just suffered a horrible death by fire, do you really think you'd choose to come back in your next life _as a dragon?_"


	20. Awe

He watches as she approaches the urn reverently, her face transformed, blazing with ecstatic joy, and he finds himself torn between admiration and worry. He's never understood these surfacers and their odd religion, and he knows that even by their standards, she's unusually focused on it. It's yet another aspect of her life that truly baffles him. He's come to understand life up here much better, but this thing with the Maker and Andraste eludes him completely, and that makes him anxious and uncomfortable every time she does something to remind him of her dedication to her faith. As they stand around the urn, he realises that everyone is looking at him. He supposes that, as their leader, they expect him to be the one to take a pinch of ashes from the sacred vessel.

He turns to her, gestures simply to the urn, and then inclines his head. From the way her face lights up, you'd think he'd offered her the keys to every shoemaker's shop in Val Royeaux. Slowly, reverently, she reaches inside the urn. Her face seems lit from within, and her eyes close as her fingertips brush the ashes. She brings her arm out, ashes in hand, and gently places them into the tiny leather purse she bought in Redcliffe, just for this. As they make their way out, he notices that she reaches up often to touch the small leather sack hung around her neck. She catches him watching her once, and he smiles at her, more from bemusement at seeing her so affected than from anything else. He doesn't understand this, but seeing her so radiantly happy is a joy in of itself, even if the context does make him uneasy.


	21. An oath more binding

By dwarven tradition, he can never marry. The marriage of a prince, even a fallen one, is in the hands of the Shaperate. Exiled and cut off, there's no hope of obtaining permission now. He tells her as much, as the soft firelight flickers in her hair. They've built a fire a little apart from the others. Her eyes are soft and sad as he speaks. She doesn't try to argue with him, or look for a way around it. She just reaches out a hand and takes his, silently.

He takes a deep breath.

"There's another way," he says. He's thought about this. He asks her if she'll accept his oath as her second, her other half in bone and blood, his honor and his life bound irrevocably to hers. Gorim swore this oath to him once, as he lay in his cradle. They aren't the words he wants to say, but they're the closest he can ever come to those. To do otherwise is to betray his ancestors and surrender his honor, and he will not let her marry an honorless man. She listens carefully, and then nods slowly, her eyes calm and bright.

His hands tremble as he places them in between hers, and the archaic phrases roll down from a thousand generations of his forebears and out upon his tongue. She listens gravely, and when he's done, she takes his hands in hers and kisses them one at a time, gravely. The she places her hands in between his and repeats his words back at him, only stumbling once. He doesn't know if it's even possible for that oath to work both ways, but it's her intent that matters, and his heart sings at the thought that she'd willingly bind herself to him.

That night they sleep apart from the others, making love slowly all through the night, and his sleepy-eyed bleariness the next day is no price at all to pay for the gift she's given him.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I made that thing about the shaperate up completely. It seemed logical, though, and it also nicely resolved why marriage never comes up as a option for a male character romancing Leliana. I mean, there had to be **some** reason they weren't falling all over themselves to slap a ring on her..._


	22. That which a king cannot do

He's never seen Alistair like this before; raging, snarling, eyes showing white all around the edges as he demands the head of the traitor in no uncertain terms. Duran, his instincts honed by centuries of inherited dwarven cunning in politics, knows this is exactly the wrong thing to do. Alive, Loghain is valuable as a tool, or a hostage, or even a trophy, but dead he's just so much cooling meat. He steps close.

"Think this through!" he hisses.

But the words of a king cannot be unsaid. Worse still, the public nature of the demands makes it certain that Alistair will look either weak and petulant, depending on the outcome. There may still be a way to salvage this, but Alistair won't budge, and on reflection, Duran realizes that if he were willing to compromise his integrity, his sense of justice on this point then he wouldn't be the kind of man, the kind of king he could see himself taking orders from someday. A king must stand on principle, must demand that those around him act with loyalty and honor, or he's no true king. Absently, he wonders how long it's been since a king sat the Iron Throne in Orzammar.

But a King cannot be an executioner. Head bowed to the necessity, he holds his hand out to the king. Alistair looks confused.

"Your sword, sire."

He takes a knee, both hands upraised. If it's to be done, it's got to be done right. Old Maric's sword must be the one to take the head of the man who betrayed his son to death and his kingdom into war and destruction. But the king cannot kill his future father-in-law on the very day he's engaged, nor can he begin his reign with an execution. Alistair gets it - he's no fool. But even then, he hesitates in indecision. Duran can see that he wants to do this himself - _needs _to do it himself. Avenging the Wardens and Duncan is the purpose he's carried inside himself all these months, the thing that's kept him going, the purpose he's set for himself, in tribute to the only father he's even known.

But it's the wrong thing to do. And he sees that Alistair realizes this as well. _Let me carry the burden,_ he pleads with his eyes. _It's only one more._ He holds his hands steady, palms up and open.

"Alistair," he says, softly, so no one else can hear. "A king's hands must remain clean. Most especially of the blood of his kin. If it must be done, let me have the deed and the blame."

It's a bitter pill, but Alistair swallows it manfully. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again they're harder, colder. He turns back to the gathered nobles, and raises his voice.

"This man's petty ambition exposed our kingdom to the Blight, so it is fitting that we place his fate in the hands of our friend and loyal servant, the Warden Commander of Ferelden. I hereby yield to his superior claim of precedence in this matter."

He draws his sword, Maric's sword, and places it in Duran's grip. Only he can see how the King's hands shake.

"May the maker guide his judgment, and his hand, if need be," says the king.

He feels a grim sense of pride at how Alistair's grown this last year. He'll be a great man and a canny king someday. Duran stands, draws on his years in the halls of the kings in Orzammar, and speaks in a voice as cold and stony as the mountains.

"Thank you, my lord, for graciously deferring to my claim. As Warden Commander, I have authority in matters touching on the blight, and the security of the kingdom against darkspawn. Teyrn Loghain, you have recklessly betrayed Ferelden to the blight and have threatened to expose the entire kingdom to the wrath of the darkspawn. I invoke my authority, and declare that your death is necessary for the safety of the kingdom."

Loghain's eyes are locked on Alistair, and his lips twist in amusement as the dwarf approaches, the king's sword in hand.

"Wise boy," he says. His gaze sharpens on the commander. "But not as wise as you, is he? Maybe the kingdom isn't doomed after all." He looks away. "Make it quick."

Duran nods, and scans the crowd for a particular face. Leliana's blue eyes are welling with tears, not for the condemned, but for him. She holds her hand pressed to her mouth. He keeps his face cold - he's ashamed that she'll see this, but her sympathy eases his heart as he checks his grip on the blade. She's a bard, born of the cutthroat politics of Val Royeaux. She understands.

The stroke is clean, and he turns away, wiping the blade on the hem of his cloak before returning it to the king. Alistair seems almost lost, undone by the lifting of the burden he's carried since that bloody night at Ostagar. After one choked sob, Anora, standing off to the side, shoots him a look of venomous hate.

That's an enemy he'll never be rid of.

Duran steps back, and Alistair orders the room cleared and the body removed in a hollow voice. The nobles file out past the headless corpse until guards arrive with a sack and blanket to remove them. He stays rigid until the room clears and only the companions remain. Even Anora is gone, pacing slowly behind her father's corpse, head bowed and tears dropping silently from her eyes. Alistair and Leliana move towards him, and he walks to meet them. They meet like the points of a triangle as the other companions close around them in a huddle of exhaustion and misery. The civil war is over, but there's still a kingdom to rally and an archdemon to fight. The real war is just beginning, and already they're hurting, bloodied, and exhausted.

Duran is empty and exhausted. He feels small callused fingers on his face, and turns to find his lover standing behind him, her touch light on his face. He reaches up one bloody hand to cup hers against his cheek. As the others talk, he stands, looking into her blue eyes, feeling the shame and guilt drain away in the face of the understanding in that sympathetic gaze. She knows why it had to be done, and what it cost him. In the face of her steadfast acceptance, even the grim horror of the day's work seems to fade away, leaving only calm and peace in its place.


	23. The temptation of hope

"Would you leave her alone?" demands Morrigan. "Without my help, one of you will die with the archdemon. I know you, Duran. You would never let your _king _fall." The word is spoken with poisonous emphasis. She goes on, each word hammering home like a punch. "You'll take the deathblow yourself, and then you'll die, and leave Leliana alone, in mourning. Alone and broken in a country not her own, with enemies all about her. Do you think Marjorlaine was the only one she's crossed? The only one to wish her ill?"

Her voice lowers, all scales and seduction. "Or," she says, "_or _you can do this little thing, and be done with it, and live on to keep her safe. You and her, living to grow old together in peace."

Still he hesitates, and her impatience drives her to try again. "Give me just a few minutes, and you can save Alistair and Leliana both."

It's too far.

"Stop," he snaps. "I'll take the choice to her. I cannot do otherwise; I will not betray her."

Morrigan hisses with impatience. "Truly? You'd prefer that she bear the burden of this knowledge as well? This could well destroy her."

Almost, he changes his mind. But he knows Leliana, knows the shape of her mind. She may be a romantic, but she's a realist too; has lived long enough in this world to understand the relative values of intangibles in the face of harsh reality. His heart, and his honor, belong to her, and he will let her do with them as she wills.

As he leaves the room, Morrigan's eyes are tense and angry.


	24. Sacrificial lamb

_A/N: The following unplanned update is brought to you by obsessedsniper, who wrote a stunningly awesome (not to mention flattering) review but apparently doesn't have an account here. BTW, if you can write a review with that level of intensity and flow, you really *ought* to set up an account and try your hand at writing this stuff. Regardless, since you don't have an account, I can't just send a PM, so consider this your thank you!_

_And for the other 2,000 (wow!) people who read Stone and Grace this month, my heartfelt appreciation for your continued loyalty as we close in on the end of my original planned story arc. I do have a couple more ideas in mind for the future (I really like this particular couple, in case that wasn't obvious) but we're close to my originally planned ending now. Another update or two ought to do it._

* * *

><p><em>How can I ask her this? <em>he wonders. _I couldn't even explain my son. How can I ask her to carry this burden?_ Again, he almost turns back, but the vision of deep blue eyes and the expression of trust and weary understanding she wore for him after the Landsmeet pulls him on.

He swore to love her, but more, he swore to treat her as his other half, to hold nothing from her and share with her every burden.

And Paragons help him, she swore the same.

He has to wake her from her sleep, knowing full well the nightmare that awaits her when she does. She recoils in horror and shock, and then he's chasing her down the hallways as she stalks towards Morrigan's chambers, a drawn dagger in each hand and her feet bare beneath her silk nightdress. The door slams on Morrigan's yelp and he hears her shoot the bolt and drop the bar before he can get a hand to the latch.

He calls her name aloud and tries to break down the door, but it's three inches of ironwood, and there's not a chance that even he can get through it in time, so after one mad lunge that leaves his shoulder numb and aching he presses his head to the door and listens with all his might.

Murmurs, Leliana's warm musical tones, and then, after a moment, Morrigan's cool icy rejoinder. Back, and forth, and back again until the bolt slides back, and the bar scrapes, and the door swings open to reveal the two of them standing in the room, and oddly enough, it's Morrigan whose eyes are full of tears. Leliana's face is set and cold, but she puts a hand on his cheek as he steps in.

"If this must be done, I intend be here for it. I would not have a secret like this between us," she says. As she speaks, her face is composed, but her eyes are haunted.

"There's no other way," says Morrigan, quietly and miserably.

"You _could_," Leliana snaps, "have gone to Alistair. He's a Grey Warden as well. But no, you had to choose _him._"

Morrigan drops her head in shame. "I could yet ask Alistair, he may be..."

"No," Duran breaks in. "He will be king, and his offspring must be legitimate, or we risk another civil war down the road..."

Leliana raises a hand and cuts him off. "And that is why it is too late. My Duran is an honorable man, and he will not let this burden pass to another, least of all his king, and his friend."

"Perhaps his friend should have a say, then," speaks a voice from the doorway. Alistair, hair and shirt rumpled, steps through the door and into the room.

Leliana sighs. "How much did you hear, Alis... Sire?"

"Alistair," he corrects, absently. "And enough." He looks at Morrigan for a moment. "I'll do it."

Duran and Leliana both try to speak at once, but Alistair holds up a hand. "Am I the king?"

Duran nods, with Leliana a fraction of a second behind.

"Then it's settled," he said. "It must be now?"

Morrigan nods, miserably.

"Very well then." He turns, and looks pointedly at the two of them. "Out please. This is going to be embarrassing enough as it is."

Duran takes a deep breath, lets it out, and puts a hand on Alistair's shoulder. "Thank you, my friend," he says.

The man nods. "Not exactly how I'd planned on licking a lamppost," he mutters. Even under the circumstances, Duran can't entirely suppress the grin.

As he leaves the room and closes the door behind them, he can hear Alistair and Morrigan speaking:

"Y'know, Morrigan, this might be the best possible revenge I can imagine for all the mean things you've said about me over the last year."

Morrigan's voice comes back, with a trace of her usual asperity. "My child," she says, "will be a moron."

Alistair gets in the last word before the door clicks shut.

"One can only hope," he says, dryly.

* * *

><p>By the time they arrive at the great hall for breakfast in the morning, Alistair is already there, surrounded by war captains and flustered servants armed with maps and serving implements.<p>

He hits them with a gimlet stare as they approach the high table. "We will never," he says, "speak of it." He shudders, theatrically. "Ever."

All around him, puzzled eyes blink as the frantic activity halts for a moment.

Leliana smiles, sweetly. "One can only hope," she says.

The day starts with laughter, after all.


	25. In at the kill

The blade of the axe sinks home, severing the spinal column of the archdemon. It flails in its death throes, sending him flying to crash onto the unforgiving flagstones of the keep. He hears a combination of crunching and crackling noises as his bones crack and shatter from the cruel impact. Worst of all is the blow to his head, a dull sickening thump with a sharper crunch underneath.

Instantly, the world seems to darken and whirl around him. As the darkness falls on him, he feels a tug at the very center of his being. Far off and high away, he hears a voice crying out and identifies it as Leliana's. Small, strong hands grasp him and turn him toward the light, but already he's fading, fading, and the tug is growing stronger, to almost unbearable levels of pressure, and then suddenly, the pull is simply gone. He has just enough time to notice the change before he fades entirely and the world goes dark.

The light returns slowly, painfully. It's too bright, and he can feel his body twitching and crackling as heavy-duty healing magic courses through him, popping joints back into place and knitting bones back together. His eyes open, to see both Wynne and Morrigan crouched above him, hands moving and golden energy flowing from them, magics so powerful they fluoresce into the visible spectrum. After a few intense, agonizing seconds the sense of wrongness and damage fades from every part of his body except his right hand, which still feels crushed. Turning his head, he sees that Leliana has a deathgrip on his wrist and hand, her face taut and pale, blue eyes staring desperately into his face. He tries to speak, falters, then takes a breath and tries again. This time the words come out, almost too quiet to hear. She leans in.

"What is it, love?" she asks.

He tries again, and this time the voice comes out stronger, though still a far cry from his usual battlefield roar.

"I said _you're crushing my hand!_"

She blinks, and then looks down to see her strong lithe fingers digging into the flesh of his hand, the white knuckled strength of the archer's fingers painful even through the leather and dragonbone of his gauntlet.

"Oh," she cries, and releases him with a start. "I'm so sorry!"

He smiles, looking up into her face. "S'ok," he murmurs, and lies back to rest. The others lean in close to look at him. Zevran looks puzzled.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't one of you gentlemen be dead? I'm quite certain that underfed warden from Orlais mentioned something about that."

Duran's incipient good mood evaporates. He looks up, meets Alistair's eyes and then Leliana's. Almost as one, they crane their necks in different directions, looking for Morrigan.

She's gone.

No surprise, he supposes, but as Alistair and Leliana come to the same conclusion they all share a worried glance. Nothing to be done about it now.

_Maybe I should try to sit up?_ he thinks.


	26. Epilogue in a sunbeam

The morning of the coronation dawns bright and clear. Duran lies in bed awake but unmoving, luxuriating in the feel of soft sheets, the warm, lithe naked form of Leliana curled up next to him, and the glorious knowledge that there are absolutely no darkspawn to fight today.

He knows there are still things to be done; the city - no, the kingdom, needs rebuilding, as do the wardens. There are nobles to bully, policies to be discussed, and most immediately, a nervous soon-to-be monarch to steady as he receives the blessings of the chantry on this, the first day of his official reign.

All of these matters are important, and he knows that soon he's going to have to pick up the reins of his new life and responsibilities; but just for a space, he's content to enjoy the fruits of his victory: the powerful, heady sense of accomplishment, the anticipation of new challenges ahead, and most of all, the soft, familiar scent and warm, sweet weight of the woman whose arms and legs are wrapped around him and whose head rests gently on his shoulder, auburn hair flowing down to tickle his cheek and ear..

After a short interval, he feels Leliana shift and turns to look directly into her clear blue eyes. As he watches, they crinkle up into a smile, and then she's kissing him, one hand coming up to cradle his face, and the other snaking down beneath the sheets, and then one thing leads to another and it's another hour before they make it down to breakfast.

The world can wait a while longer.

* * *

><p><em>AN: …and with that, we come to the end of our story for now. Thanks to everyone who's followed along for the ride, and especially for everyone who's commented. I appreciate the feedback, and I'm glad you all enjoyed this, especially you, Judy – wish I could respond to your comments via PM!. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I really like these characters and will probably try to write about them again in the future. After all, there's all of Awakening to do, and then Orzammar might need some help, and there's always the chance of a visit to Kirkwall. But for now I want to wrap up a couple of loose ends with other stories before Mass Effect 3 comes out and I become completely debilitated. Again, thanks to all who read and reviewed, and I sincerely appreciate your time and interest. Bye for now!_


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